Page 60 of Undeniable

“I love you Alessandro, I love your father too. You are both amazing men and I am so thankful to have met you. You will always be my best friend.”

“Then why are you leaving us?” He sniffles.

I blow out another breath as my eyes glance over the property, the glow of flashlights coming closer towards us. I stand up and let go of him as I take a step back.

“I have to go. Go inside and back to your room,” I say as I turn on my heel and take off towards the main road in a sprint.

“No!” He cries.

I look back to see him forcing himself between the bars as he begins to chase after me. I stop in the middle of the road before I turn back to him. His arms wrap around my waist as he begins to sob into me.

“Don’t go! I will be good, I promise! I’ll clean my room every day and you can have all of my candy! Just don’t leave. I don’t want to lose another mommy!” Alessandro cries out.

My heart breaks as I hold this perfect, sweet, broken hearted little boy. I hate that I am hurting him. I hate that I should be long gone but instead, I am standing here bawling my eyes out with this sweet little boy in my arms. He needs a sense of stability and permanence that my life will never allow. If I want to live to see another day, I have to leave now. But if I leave him crying in the street like this, will I even be able to live with myself?

“Alessandro,” I say softly. “It isn’t that-”

My words are cut off with the sound of tires behind us.

I whip around to see two men walking towards us. My eyes widen in panic as I recognize them as Dimitri’s men. All of the breath in my lungs is stolen away as they come closer. One goes for me while the other walks past me. I struggle against the man’s hold, but it is no use when he is twice my size.

“Alessandro! RUN!” I screech just before the man’s meaty fist connects with my temple and everything goes dark.

Chapter Twenty Three

Giovanni

I have been staring at a peeling piece of paint on the ceiling of my room for the last 5 hours. You would think that as the Boss of one of the largest and most powerful families in the country, you could afford to paint a fucking ceiling. The lack of sleep isn’t because of flaking paint though. It isn’t even because of Tasha’s betrayal. It is because of the fucking way she looked at me.

Her eyes begged me to believe her, begged me not to give up on us, begged me to fucking save her. And damn me if I didn’t consider it for a moment. But what is that thing people say? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, then I am a fucking idiot.

I don’t know why I even went downstairs last night. I guess because a small part of me wanted to see her again. To see what she would say to me if given the chance. It tore my soul to shreds to watch her being hurt. I had to completely shut down, occasionally closing my eyes because there were times where I was ready to do something crazy, like kill my best friend over a woman that totally fucking played me.

Messing with me and my heart is one thing, but she brought my kid into this. He might love her more than I do. I mean, used to. He might love her more than I used to. Fuck.

It took me hours last night just to get him to calm down. Luca, being the irrational asshole that he is, didn’t take into account the fact that the kids bared witness to him choking the life out of Tasha in front of them.

Alessandro told me that he tried to stop him, but Ashlynn pulled him out of the room. He looked at me with so much disappointment. Like he thought that he had failed me by not protectingourgirl, his words.

I will survive this. I have to. I will lock down my emotions like before but times 20, but Alessandro? No. I think this will always be something that he carries close to him.

The first mother figure, besides his Abuela, that he connected with will just be gone today. He will never hear from her, never see her again. If that isn’t going to add to the pile of abandonment issues that he already has then I don’t know what will.

I fucking hate that I allowed my kid to be put into this position in the first place. I was thinking with my dick, and then with that stupid organ in my chest. Both of them left me totally fucked.

Slowly standing up, I walk over to the bathroom and splash some cool water on my face. I scrub my hands up and down a few times before I look into the mirror. Do I have what it takes? Can I honestly look into those big, beautiful baby blues, and drain the life out of them? In the name of revenge, for the sake of the betrayal that she caused. Though, do I really have a choice?

Fuck this. Of course, I can’t. I have to talk to Luca or sneak her out myself. I don’t care how much she hurt me, she means too much to Alessandro, and if I am honest, too much to me. I saw too much truth in her eyes last night to just ignore. I have to hear her out, if anything, to ease this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me that we were more than all of this shit. That we were real, at least for a little while.

Quickly throwing on the closest clothes that I can find, I get dressed and hurry down the stairs to the cellar. Luca calls it a cellar, but it really is more like a medieval dungeon. His Uncle Stefano had it built when he had the home built. It is creepy as fuck and I don’t know if it is because of the gothic designs, the crumbling cobble stone floors or the fact that dozens of men have died slow and painful deaths in here.

I make my way down the long hallway until I reach Tasha’s cell, only to find the door open. I freeze mid step. What the fuck? My eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, and I see that the cell is completely empty.

There is no blood or signs of a struggle, so I can only hope that Luca didn’t decide to just off her in the middle of the night. That leads me to think that she escaped. But there is also no sign of how she could have gotten out. There is no sign of distress against the walls or the door, it looks like she just opened it and walked out willingly.

I scramble down the hallway and up the stairs to the main floor of the house.

“Tasha!” I call out as I run from room to room. “Tasha!”

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